Profiles

Forums

Everything posted by KovaaK

Hey guys,
Shooter and I went to Toronto last weekend and got to see the Reflex movie in a theater along with the director, cast, and crew. It was awesome, and we can't wait until more people can see it too!
But annoyingly, one of the distributors they are working with doesn't like the original title ("LAN"). They tossed a few suggestions back to the director, but most of them sucked. "Critical Hit" and "Level Up" made me gag.
So, we're looking for input on titles for the movie. The ones I've been a fan of of so far are:
Control Shift
Carnage
Outaimed
And some others that were recommended:
FTW (For The Win)
Off the Grid
Nefarious Outlawz
Band of Cybers
Gamesters
Nefarious Zone
Amongst Mere Mortals
Sacrifice Game
Tyler’s Game (main character = Tyler)
Gamers
Gamerz
Game On
End Game
Kill Streak
eGame
Multiplayer
GamePlay
First Person
Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions on titles that fit the genre of "sports movie, but replace sports with Reflex", that would be great. The Reflex part of the movie involves CTF more so than other game-modes. It has 22 minutes of in-game footage over the ~80 minute movie.

Reflex was just released last month and enjoyed a small population boom that took the concurrent users and multiplied it by 2-3. It was great until something like 90% of the newer players stopped playing. So we must ask ourselves why the population tanked back to pre-release levels already.
Was it the community? No, I highly doubt that. The majority of us have been very welcoming and took time to show newer players what the game has to offer. Parkourstation and reflextrain saw a lot of play time on public servers. Even in duels, veterans stopped and explained why they were surviving through multiple direct rockets to the face, toned down their game, and let newcomers grab some armors. Bringing people to the official discord has gone pretty well too. I'd love it if this was a success story and I was only here to report these facts...
So why didn't people stick with the game? To use a metaphor, I think it's that new players see a pit of depth for how good you could possibly be at reflex, but there are no lights pointed down there. There is nothing that illuminates why prime overlords can convincingly beat overlords, who can stomp on diamonds, who can dominate platinums, who can destroy... All the way down to bronze. As we all know, combat skills don't define everything in this game, but that is the only thing that is outwardly obvious before a new player buys the game. And even after they have played for a week, they are aware movement plays a big part, but the depths of strategy are still a murky black pit that makes no sense to them.
Compared to Overwatch, it's really obvious that depth in the game (outside of combat skills) comes from finding the right times to use your abilities and coordinating with teammates. You don't go into the game without knowing what you eventually need to improve upon. In Reflex, so many people bought the game and quit before they even knew how to improve.
There is an old video that described the ways in which Mega Man and Mega Man X were amazing games. The tl;dw: is that the games avoided explicitly telling people what to do because the mechanics of the game were revealed naturally while forcing the player to recognize what was going on, and mechanics that didn't work well in earlier games were removed in later games. This video brings home a really good point to me: my Reflex tutorials shouldn't need to exist. At least 90% of what I say in my tutorials should be forced on the player or made much more transparent. New players shouldn't be forced to listen to me talk - the game should make the important aspects completely obvious through the player exploring the game.
This is why I thought item timers were a step in the right direction - it enhances mechanic transparency. As we observed, the more hardcore players fought against it because it diminished known strategic depth. It wasn't the ideal solution, and I'm willing to admit that. But it's still painfully clear that something needs to change with the fundamental gameplay of Reflex, and it won't be easy. I have two proposed changes we could try out, and I'm curious if anyone can poke holes in them. I'm also interested in other ideas people might have.
Proposed change 1: bring back item timers in competitive modes, but make them unreliable. A mechanic could be introduced where if you shoot at an item that is not yet respawned, it adds or subtracts time from the respawning item (perhaps to a max of 5 seconds). Item timer widgets could represent what the unmodified time would be, and players could throw off timing by hand. Maybe you could tweak this idea and make it so the last person/team to collect the armor adds time to respawn by shooting it, and others subtract time by shooting it (or vice versa).
To accommodate new players, you'd want to clearly show that respawn time is being changed by their actions with "-1 second" popping out of the item colored according to the action, and a default UI widget like apheleon's timer timeline with visual uncertainty (instead of discrete red armor on the time line, a red armor on a bar that extends to the possible ranges) would go a long way to help.
Or...
Proposed change 2: all armors respawn at :00 and :30 on the clock. Other items keep their existing respawn properties. An additional benefit to this drastic change is that it removes the full lock armor cycle state of control, which means small skill differences will be less likely to result in huge score differences.
With armor cycling removed, positioning yourself between multiple armors and timing your attacks appropriately become a stronger part of the game's higher end strategy. A simple but prominent UI widget showing time until all armors respawn would go a long way to teach new players what they need to focus on.
I know #2 is harder to get buy-in from older players, but I want you guys to think seriously on it. We need to community to grow. I think #1 might not take it far enough. Perhaps #1 along with other changes to help make the game's important mechanics more transparent world be ideal, but I'd really like to try out things that make the game more approachable.
I also have a list of changes I'd recommend to the game's tutorial system, but that is less important than gameplay changes at this point.

So, this thread was intended to have feedback regarding the maps in the current rotation of Proving Grounds. I played a few rounds yesterday, and here are my ~2 line thoughts:
Sanctum - Only played once, but I felt lost when out of control. I'm not sure what the best options available are, but it could be interesting.
Immortal Share - BEST MAP EVER. I'm only slightly biased. More seriously though, I know it's very divisive due to the perception of fights at mega becoming a bit janky, but there are strong punishes on people trying to use the teleporter there. Plus the stake jumps are just fun.
Quickfire - Out of control play seems very strong on this map due to the two separate 2-way teleporters + easier punishes on Red Armor + very long sight lines for +back/+bolt.
The Pandemonium [thct1] - It looks beautiful with the new art pass, and plays decently well too. My eyes were getting slightly distracted with the new visuals on first play. I'd probably get used to it with a few more plays, or maybe messing with gamma...
Calendar - Plays pretty well now. Seems like there are good choices out of control. Might be one of my favorites in this rotation right now.
xy7 - Haven't played the latest version yet.
Fata Morgana - I struggled with out of control play, but the right answer might be to abuse spam through holes. Not sure what this would look like at high levels of play.
Abandoned Shelter [clean] - Haven't had it come up in the queue yet.

I was thinking maybe a reduced impact on wins/losses to MMR in PG would be a good thing. Like you gain 1/2 or 1/3 as much MMR for beating an opponent in the PG instead of normal, and you lose 1/2 to 1/3rd the normal amount too.

People have expressed support for Quake Champions and I know the NDA is still under effect so I can't talk too much about it, but I have serious issues about the base balance of the game. As it stands, I can't imagine any game mode providing depth due to the design limitations they have put on themselves with such tiny maximum stacks and every weapon being quite strong. The idea of separate champions with different movement physics is great and I don't mind the idea of active abilities at all, but there is no way it will succeed with hardcore audiences due to the way they are cornering themselves with the weapon/stack balance.
I have to disagree there. Reflex is the first AFPS with netcode of its kind (it can be quirky at times, but at moderate pings it is significant better than any alternative), a built-in multiplayer map editor + in-game steam workshop support (hence the 700+ maps on the workshop), and the LUA UI functionality. The game is highly responsive and has excellent visibility. Because of these reasons, I feel that Reflex is in a better position to succeed than any other game in the genre. If only we could get the right combination of gameplay changes, awesome/fun casual modes, and advertising.

A number of responses (here and in DMs elsewhere) have suggested a new, casual game mode would be good for player retention. This is a really good point that I'd neglected. In fact, I played Quake 1 in a very casual setting for a few years before I even knew there was a competitive community. I mentioned this a few years ago, but there was a really cool idea for a mod that my friends had me program in Quake 1. I think it would work beautifully in Reflex as well...
Basically, it's an asymmetrical mode in which one team is defending a flag/capture point, and the attacking team is attempting to touch said point. When the attacking team does manage to touch the point, everyone on the map is killed, and the sides are swapped. Everyone starts out with all weapons and an appreciable amount of health/armor/ammo, but there are pickups on the map that respawn at an accelerated pace - mostly clustered on the defending team's side. You could give points over time to the defending team depending on how long they were able to maintain control, and have a timelimit on the map before the round is over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNWqp5Fd5Ug is a video of it in action in Quake 1.
The awesome movement systems of Quake and Reflex allow it to be something like an obstacle course that the attackers have to traverse while being shot at by defenders. It's great fun, and the map making tools+workshop for Reflex could turn it into something pretty amazing.
Also, thanks everyone for the great discussion and ideas. <3

I've had a few people watching my stream ask for this, so I finally got all of my stuff organized so that someone can (hopefully) easily install all of it. So, here is what it looks like. (Screenshot Updated 10/23/15 for CTF, looks same as of 4/3/16)
It's a combination of the following:
Apheleon's Timer Timeline (modified so Green Armors don't show up for this widget, added a few names of armors per map)
KovTimers2 (stock timers, but modified so ONLY Green Armors show up here)
AccelMeter, hacked apart from PHGP ReflexRun. When you are holding forward and a strafe, this widget displays a thin transparent green line that represents the optimal angle you should be facing to gain the most speed.
ArmorBar_gls from Gliss
HealthBar_gls from Gliss
WeaponRack_gls from Gliss (modified so when you are low on ammo for RL, IC, or BR those ammos flash. If you are low on other ammos, it only flashes if you currently have those weapons selected)
GrenadeTimer by me
Mega Health Tracker by me (now incorporated directly into HealthBar_gls)
EZQuake style Speedometer by me
KovCrosshairs which is a simple hack of the stock Crosshairs.lua to make crosshair 2 a smaller version of crosshair 1. My config uses that smaller crosshair for IC and BR. Crosshair 3 is also a "Donut" that represents the spread of shotgun.
Parts taken from DP2Hud by Qualx - specifically the scoreboard, game timer/clock, and duel title screen. Scoreboard has been modified to show your team's score, flag status, and player health/armor/weapon/ammo/powerups/flag.
HitscanAccuracy.lua by Qualx. Displays Ion Cannon and Bolt Rifle accuracies (but only functions when you are spectating a duel).
HoldToZoom.lua and ShowScoresOverload.lua included for convenience but not bound to anything by default. (bind game space ui_showscoresoverload_zoom 1; +showscores)
KovChatLog.lua (simple change of some red text to some other color that is easier for my color blind eyes to see)
KovEnemyTeamInfo to display enemy team score, flag status, and player names at the top left corner. If you are spectating, it also shows health/armor/weapon/ammo/powerups/flag.
KovFlagTracker.lua which feeds variables for KovEnemyTeamInfo and dp2hudrip.lua (probably not needed anymore, there seem to be native variables that give what this was designed to do)
KovFPMtT - Frags Per Minute to Tie. A visual displays of how far ahead/behind you are versus time remaining. Red = you need to rush or risk loss. Blue = play defensive for an easy win.
So, without further ado, Download the package Here.
I run my game at 1280x720, and everything scales fine to 1920x1080. 4:3 resolutions do not play nicely with the weaponrack (sorry).
Installation instructions:
Download/Extract the above zip to your SteamApps\common\Reflexfps directory (if you installed the game early on, it will be SteamApps\common\Reflex). Note that Reflex checks for new .lua files only on being run, so you can't be in game when you extract.
Move kovHUD.pak to your "base" folder. (and kovhud.cfg should be in the same folder as your Reflex.exe)
(Optional) - Make a backup of your game.cfg.
Start Reflex. Go into the console and type "loadconfig kovhud"
If you have any problems getting something to work, let me know. I started from a fresh install of Reflex to make this package, and it seems like it's working for me.

Quick opinion - giving Euros the East Coast preference is probably not entirely desirable for a North American cup. It's fine when it's a Europe vs East Coast or Europe vs Central, but Europe vs West Coast players can skew the favors against the West Coast players (who should have the home advantage in a North American tournament). If you take three equally skilled players from Europe, East Coast, and West Coast in the current configuration, the East Coast player would have the advantage over the Euro (which is fine - North American tournament), but the Euro might have the advantage over the West Coast player depending on the West Coast player's connection and routing. And a lot of West Coast players have notoriously horrible/inconsistent routing to the East Coast.
In the BOXR tournament, we had it set up like this:
Euro vs East Coast: Played on East Coast server
Euro vs Central: Played on East Coast server
Euro vs West: Played on Central server
Of course if the players wanted to play on whatever server, that was fine too.
Anyway, I'm not playing in the tournament (will be working), and I hope it all goes smoothly. GLHF!

I haven't updated it for a while. I figured when the steam workshop support for LUA is added, I'll update things then.
For the time being, is there an error message in your console or anything? It sounds like the pak file with the hud might not be in the right folder if nothing gets loaded.

So, I spent Sunday and Monday furiously writing up notes and recording videos since I wanted to get to as many of the newer players to the game as I could (yay Steam sales). Many of you have already seen the end result - 10 episodes (about an hour and a half) of videos going from the very basics of Reflex to some more advanced strategies to employ in duel. Here's the full playlist. Or, here are the individual episodes: IntroductionMovement BasicsGame ModesHealth/Armor Systems & PowerupsWeaponsConfigurationCombat tipsSubtletiesAdvanced dueling strategiesHow to get betterIf you prefer to read text instead of watch video, I transcribed my notes into something more intelligible and put them on the Reflexfiles wiki here. My intent is to try to keep this series relatively up to date with changes to the game. I separated the series into so many episodes so that if I need to re-record something, it won't be a major hassle. Also, as I mentioned at the end of the last video, I am planning on doing some informal demo reviews when I get a chance here/there. Players of any skill can send me a replay (just message me here, on IRC, Steam, or Reddit to coordinate), and I'll try to give it a fair review of what I thought could have been done differently. I'll let you know what I think you missed. I just request that the game you played be something where it wasn't a complete blowout in one direction or the other, and that you were engaged with playing the entire game (not spacing out).

So, this movie will contain lots of on-screen footage of Reflex being played as the primary focus, but since it also takes place at LAN parties, there will be incidental gameplay going on too. We need lots of demos of just random stuff happening. Anything goes, but CTF is preferred. Keep the obscene content in terms of player names/chatter out, and there's a good chance we'll find a use for it.
If you want your names in the credits, give me a heads-up on firstname/lastname too (private messages are fine if you prefer)!

Title is serious. So, here's the deal: There's a writer/director who has been making a work of fiction about eSports, and after talks with newborn & team, he decided to pick Reflex as the game that will be featured in his movie. That paragraph is so cool that it needs to stand on its own. Anyway, we need the community's help! I wrote the choreography and Entik is going to do in-game sequence editing once we have demos. Now that 0.38 is released, we are at the point where we need to start recording demos of the choreographed scenes. We also could use some help in personalizing UIs of the characters to help reinforce that each player's point of view is his own. I'll be contacting players to help us out in getting things together, but I wanted this post to be a quick and dirty reference for the fictional characters in the story (names in game, player colors, thought for hud development). So, our cast of characters are: "Pulse" - cl_playercolor* set to 6 (blue) "eGo" - cl_playercolor* set to 12 (yellow) "TANK" - cl_playercolor* set to 42 (green) "cranKEd" - cl_playercolor* set to 14 (orange) "mirage" - cl_playercolor* set to 2 (pink) "L3ader" - cl_playercolor* set to 15 (white) "Phantom" - cl_playercolor* set to 48 (red) "ChUcKy" - cl_playercolor* set to 50 (magenta) "oO Inhale Oo" - cl_playercolor* set to 63 (grey) "xX Exhale Xx" - cl_playercolor* set to 63 (grey) There will be more characters, but their names/settings aren't as important. In fact, if you wish, you can you use your usual name in game (nothing offensive/obscene) and might even show up on the big screen :). Any time we're recording content with people "acting" as these characters, we'll require that your colors and name be set according to the above. I won't be able to give out the script, but I'll be able to pass around parts of the choreographed scenes we are going for and say what we're trying to get out of them. Some time tomorrow (12/15/15) I hope to get shortened versions of the choreographed scenes into a text format that people can use as a basis for recording replays to use in the movie. Pulse uses default hud, basic white + xhair of standard size. Ego's hud is minimalistic, dot crosshair, whatever color works. Mirage's hud will be a copy of Ego's. Tank's hud will be macho with a big/bold font, orange crosshair, interesting styles. Cranked's hud is whacked out/disorganized, green crosshair, maybe a weird xhair graphic? Phantom's hud close to Pulse's but minor changes (vertical instead of horizontal weapon bar), CS style crosshair (with the middle missing). For any characters past that, we're open to ideas. Unique, cool stuff, simple, whatever - just make it distinct from the important characters listed. To anyone who wants to make us a HUD, feel free to link a screenshot along with whatever changed files (and a saved configuration) you had. Final decision on what HUDs to use will come down to the director's approval. Personally, I can't wait to see this all come together. It's going to be great :D.

This widget is designed to help players transition from using item timers to using only a game clock to time items. If you are new to the game, I still fully encourage you to use Apheleon's Timer Timeline since it is a much better visual aid to let you focus on playing the game. Options include: Toggle whether to calculate based on if your game clock goes up or downEnable or disable specific item types including: Red Armor, Yellow Armor, Green Armor, Mega, or CarnageOption to hide minutes #The idea is that you disable normal item timers and play with this on (perhaps only with Red and Mega shown), and try to get used to thinking in terms of "Red comes up at :14". Then once you can get used to that, you can try to start calculating the times manually and disabling all timer widgets. Note that in pre-match it functions exactly the same as the stock PickupTimers.lua, so you must have a gameclock going for it to act any differently. I tried to test this pretty thoroughly with respect to things like Overtime, so it should be good. Let me know if you find any bugs though, or if you have any requests. KovTimerTrainer.lua here.

For anyone who is running Python 2.x and too lazy to install Python 3.x, I did a quick port of the script (which just involved changing some tkinter GUI things). Still working fine in modern Reflex maps btw :).

http://www.reflexfps.net/forums/index.php?/topic/2901-item-timer-trainer/ was kind of like that (tells you the clock time that an item will respawn, but doesn't disappear), but I'm pretty sure it is broken per some changes to item timer code that they did a few patches back. Shouldn't be too hard to fix up when I get a chance (or if someone else wants to take a quick look)...